Sadly, it seems my mother can’t understand my words very well.
Of course, it would be stranger if she could understand me, since I’m asking to be taught magic when I can’t even speak properly yet.

……Well, more than that,
I don’t know how magic is used, but if magic needs an incantation, then I would probably need to understand the language of this world. And even if I can acquire it by reading books, I will still need to be able to read the letters at the very least.
[Instant Interpretation] is only usable for interpreting and not for translating, so it looks like I can’t use it to translate the content of books.
Well, even if it was possible, it would still be limited to 3 years. No matter what, it’s necessary to study the letters.

Alright! Let’s learn words first.

With that decided, I’ll quickly….. How should I go about doing it?
Needless to say, the current me is a newborn infant, and it might be a little early to get someone to read to me at this stage, even in Japan.

Hang on……?
When I fell prostrate, there was something at my feet. It lay underneath the cheek of Julia-kaasan, who seemed to be making a happy sleeping face.
With drool dripping onto it, I could see what looked like a book.

Moving excitedly on the bed, I approach the book?

Sure enough, it really was a book.
I take care so as to not disturb my mother’s sleep while I try to extract the book from under her.

But this…… is heavy.
It’s a bulky book that seems to have at least a thousand pages.

The cover is leather, and the insides are paper.
It seems Marquekt has papermaking technology. If there was only parchment then it would be difficult to even secure notepaper for writing down the letters.

Ah, that’s right, [Appraisal].

《Rare book『Abaddon Magic Compilation』: An encyclopedia of magic written by Gweg Abaddon(グェッグ・アバドン), a magic scholar from the 10th century. It is well known for its tenaciously elaborate depictions and accurate descriptions, but is currently out of print, and is only possessed by several large-scale libraries.》

I’ve hit the jackpot!

Full of anticipation, I turn the cover of the 『Abaddon Magic Compilation』 with a trembling hand.

There―

“……Fun, Fuaa, Fuafuah hehaone” (Yeah, well, I already knew though.)

The page was completely covered in mysterious letters that I couldn’t read.
And furthermore, it was packed with small print arranged in three columns.
This.. wouldn’t this be difficult even if I could understand the words?

And,

“……Hm? Huh, Edgar-kun?”

Perhaps it was due to my wretched rummaging around, but my mother woke up.
I don’t know why, but she called me “Edgar-kun”, adding -kun to my name.

“Oh my, were you reading the book?”

“Aii~”

I didn’t actually read it, and couldn’t even read, but I replied adorably for the time being.

“That book is difficult, you see. If you read it at night when you can’t sleep, you’ll be able to sleep all of a sudden.”

Is that really alright, 《Flame Prison Witch》?

“There are picture books more suited for you, Edgar-kun, so let’s look at those, okay~”

“Geez. Didn’t I say it was difficult? Well, in that case, how about I read a little bit for you?”

My mother says, thinking I would understand if she read it.

When she sees me babbling happily in response, she says, “what a strange kid,” as she sits on a chair beside the bed and spread the 『Abaddon Magic Compilation』 before me, who was on the bed.

“Let’s see, alright. Then, let’s read the [Water] entry.”

The 『Abaddon Magic Compilation』 is an encyclopedia, so the records are itemised.

“In regards to the study of magic, water refers to the possible series of events (matter | phenomenon) caused by interference from the magic letter 『π (Aqua)』. However, it must be kept in mind that what it is comprised of deviates from our everyday impressions. For example, it is possible to manipulate human blood using π, but not mercury, as it is part of the magic letter representing earth 『Ω (Gaia)』’s scope of interference instead. The clouds drifting in the sky may appear to be within the jurisdiction of the magic letter of Wind『λ (Wind)』at first glance, but the ones who reported a success in interference are limited to those who utilised π. It appears that this matter is easy to understand for those who have climbed a high mountain. Because part of these mountains, their summits, reach a point surpassing the clouds, mountain climbers will penetrate the clouds en route. In that situation, mountain climbers will pass through chilly and moist air as if they were walking through fog, and their whole body will be subject to a vast quantity of water. In other words, clouds are formed from water. As you can see, the study of magic is not only the cultivation of magic, but the comprehension of all things in nature as well. Incidentally, there exist ‘reports of success’ within the reports concerning the manipulation of clouds in which the magic letter of wind 『λ』 was used. However, this is no more than scattering clouds by way of wind, and is a completely different phenomenon to altering the shape of clouds by manipulating its base form of water. The young magic scholars of the present have a tendency to rush towards achievement and shirk on straightforward verification work, but theory which doesn’t pass through verification is no more than the mere delusions of those people, and by all rights, is presumptuous to call those sort of people scholars.
……Umm, is that enough?”

She seemed to have read to me because I had been earnestly listening, but indeed, this was a somewhat considerably tiresome book.
The passion of the author, who incorporated all the information that he personally knew, was amazing but it was hard to understand the logic behind including even the finest details, and above all, it would make one sleepy if they read it.
I felt that the base form of clouds was a natural matter, as my past life was of a modern Japanese person. The end part also seemed somewhat silly too. I can also understand Julia-kaasan using it for sleeping.

However, I thought that it was unexpectedly good.

I don’t know the common sense of this world at any rate.
This encyclopedia which even insistently and persistently includes the obvious things, might be a mountain of treasure if one can ignore the boredom at least.

But……I really couldn’t read it.
The letters in the book were comprised of a combination of approximately 20 character varieties indistinguishable from the alphabet, Greek characters, and Cyrillic characters, so the language concept was probably fundamentally similar to European languages.

Even so, there were things I understood at once.

It was the letters for magic.
Water is 『π (Aqua)』, Earth is 『Ω (Gaia)』, and Wind is 『λ (Wind)』.
It didn’t appear so I don’t know it, but there’s probably one for Fire as well.

Here, π (pi), Ω (omega), and λ (lambda) were scattered about, although more accurately, they were unknown symbols that were similar to them. As for the reading, I listened carefully to Julia-kaasan’s words and that was how they were pronounced.
My mother points to the corresponding section with her finger as she reads aloud, so at least I was able to pick up the important parts one way or another.

However, I didn’t understand the other parts at all, seeing them for the first time.

“Auau~”

One more time! I yell out, hitting the passage just now with the palm of my hand.

“Eh~? You want me to read it once more?”

Julia-kaasan appeared blatantly troubled, but she answered to my request and read the same passage once again.
This time I’ll switch my [Instant Interpretation] to OFF, and pick up the raw sounds.
……Woah, I seriously can’t understand.

“#$%◇…………『π (Aqua)』…………『Ω (Gaia)』…………『λ (Wind)』……”

I move my mouth, mumbling along in my lisp, as I attempt to imitate my mother’s words.
And when she finished, another encore.
While crying and clinging to the book, I had Julia-kaasan read around a dozen times.
I was still unsatisfied but as one would expect, my mother who didn’t have [No Fatigue] had on a fed up expression.
Casting a sidelong glance at my mother, I frantically continued reproducing the sounds I listened to just now, in my mind.

I wouldn’t be able to learn an unfamiliar language by having it repeated ten times with the brains of my past life, but maybe it was thanks to the absorbing powers of an infant, or perhaps [No fatigue] preventing me from tiring mentally, I was able to remember the words to the extent of following them.
Of course, I would immediately forget them with just that, so I continued to memorise nothing but the water entry in the 『Abaddon Magic Compilation』 for half a day afterwards.
It was harsh repetitive work like the ascetic practices of a cult religion from somewhere in my previous life, but thanks to [No Fatigue], I was able to continue nonstop without tiring or losing interest.
Mother left the 『Abaddon Magic Compilation』 by the bedside, so I recited the water entry in a mutter while following the book’s sentences with my eyes.

While doing that, I could somehow understand the sentence rules.
I was able to infer the meaning of the numerous words in the Water entry, and I was able to decipher the spelling conventions corresponding to the sounds.
Fortunately, it seemed the spellings generally represented the sounds as they were, and I was also able to grasp the conventions which separated the consonants and vowels.

They were unfamiliar characters, so I compared them to the alphabet of my former world and successively memorised the corresponding relationships (It would be useful if I could write them down in a notebook or something, but there wasn’t anything like that in this room).
I would decipher them when it was bright and would do nothing but repeatedly reciting them from memory at night, sorting them inside my head so that I would be able to recall them even at random times.
It was such troublesome work so that if it was my previous life, I would want to flee just by imagining it. But thanks to [No Fatigue], I didn’t tire so inside my head, and I was able to completely dedicate the whole day to the correspondence chart for the Marquekt characters and the alphabet.
With this, I was at least able to pronounce sentences for now, even when I’ve never seen before.

And then, while working on the correlation of this alphabet, I realised something interesting.

The magic letters π, Ω, and λ frequently appear in the spelling of other words.
Furthermore, it seems these represent vowels.

The correspondence chart I made looks like this.
・π = a
・Ω = o
・λ = u

And this language (Marquektese?) only has 4 vowels (they have composite vowels that combine vowels, such as – au, ou).
In other words, the final vowel remaining,

・卜= i (e)

This vowel should be the magic letter for Fire.
I don’t know the pronunciation, but it should probably be something like Fire, Flame, or Flare.
I read it as “Boku” for the time being though.

Well, I was excited when I reached this inference.

I AM A GENIUS!

I felt like there was a banner with such, hanging above my head.

And, while keeping this symbol (卜) in my mind, I traced it with my finger on my blanket.
I continued writing “卜卜卜卜卜卜……”
With the concentration powers of [No Fatigue] on full throttle, that was.

Originally the series was just going to be a teaser, so I wasn’t expecting to continue to update it. However, there have been plenty of people asking for more chapters and help was offered, hence the decision to promote it to side-project status. Future updates will have posts linking to them (:

I actually liked the lecture from the ponderous old tome. It convinces me that the magic system won’t be stupid or that the people who use magic in this world aren’t all clueless “medieval shit farmers.” That the people who are self-described scholars are actually EDUCATED compared to everybody else.

I also love the bit where the author actually seems to understand the scientific method and doesn’t just make it so the protagonist casts the biggest fireballs just because he knows what oxygen is.

Theories without verifications are just delusions, indeed.
A lot of people really do not understand that, even in this day and age. They confuse having a set of principles or being able to articulate an idea as being exactly the same as being informed or intellectual.